1 When civil a dudgeon, &c.] Dudgeon. Who made the alterations in the last
Edition of this poem I know not, but they are certainly sometimes for the worse; and I cannot believe the Author would
have changed a word so proper in that place as dudgeon for that of fury, as it is in the last Edition. To take in
dudgeon, is inwardly to resent some injury or affront; a sort of grumbling in the gizzard, and what is previous to
actual fury.

2 That could as well, &c.] Bind over to the Sessions as being a Justice of the
Peace in his County, as well as Colonel of a Regiment of Foot in the Parliament’s army, and a committee-Man.

3 As MONTAIGNE, &c.] Montaigne, in his Essays, supposes his cat thought him a
fool, for losing his time in playing with her.

4 To make some, &c.] Here again is an alteration without any amendment; for the
following lines,

And truly, so he was, perhaps,

Not as a Proselyte, but for Claps,

Are thus changed,

And truly so, perhaps, he was;

’Tis many a pious Christian’s case.

The Heathens had an odd opinion, and have a strange reason why Moses imposed the law of circumcision on the Jews,
which, how untrue soever, I will give the learned reader an account of without translation, as I find it in the
annotations upon Horace, wrote by my worthy and learned friend Mr. William Baxter, the great restorer of the ancient
and promoter of modern learning.

[Circumcised: Moses the King of the Jews, by whose laws they are ruled, and whose foreskin overhung (the tip of his
penis), had this blockage carelessly medicinally removed, and not wishing to be alone wanted them all to be
circumcised. (We have tentatively restored the word BLOCKAGE, which the scribe’s incompetence has omitted, and
substituted medically removed for carried out by a doctor which was never there.) Who shall wonder that this kind of
cutting caused an outcry by Epicureans and Pagans? It can be seen therefore, why Henricus Glareanus judged it an
implement of the devil. So the Fifth Satire has it: It is certain that every miracle can be fitted into the
philosophical systems which the Epicureans most carefully discuss.]

5 Profoundly skill’d, &c.] Analytick is a part of logic, that teaches to
decline and construe reason, as grammar does words.

6 A Babylonish, &c.] A confusion of languages, such as some of our modern
Virtuosi used to express themselves in.

7 Or CERBERUS himself, &c.] Cerberus; a name which poets give a dog with three
heads, which they feigned door-keeper of Hell, that caressed the unfortunate souls sent thither, and devoured them that
would get out again; yet Hercules tied him up, and made him follow. This dog with three heads denotes the past, the
present, and the time to come; which receive, and, as it were, devour all things. Hercules got the better of him, which
shews that heroic actions are always victorious over time, because they are present in the memory of posterity.

8 That had the, &c.] Demosthenes, who is said to have had a defect in his
pronunciation, which he cured by using to speak with little stones in his mouth.

10 Whatever Sceptick, &c.] Sceptick. Pyrrho was the chief of the Sceptick
Philosophers, and was at first, as Apollodorus saith, a painter, then became the hearer of Driso, and at last the
disciple of Anaxagoras, whom he followed into India, to see the Gymnosophists. He pretended that men did nothing but by
custom; there was neither honesty nor dishonesty, justice nor injustice, good nor evil. He was very solitary, lived to
be ninety years old, was highly esteemed in his country, and created chief priest. He lived in the time of Epicurus and
Theophrastus, about the 120th Olympiad. His followers were called Phyrrhonians; besides which they were named the
Ephecticks and Aphoreticks, but more generally Scepticks. This sect made their chiefest good to consist in a sedateness
of mind, exempt from all passions; in regulating their opinions, and moderating their passions, which they called
Ataxia and Metriopathia; and in suspending their judgment in regard of good and evil, truth or falsehood, which they
called Epechi. Sextus Empiricus, who lived in the second century, under the Emperor Antoninus Pius, writ ten books
against the mathematicians or astrologers, and three of the Phyrrhonian opinion. The word is derived from the Greek
SKEPTESZAI, quod est, considerare, speculare. [To consider or speculate]

11 He cou’d reduce, &c.] The old philosophers thought to extract notions out
of natural things, as chymists do spirits and essences; and, when they had refined them into the nicest subtilties,
gave them as insignificant names as those operators do their extractions: But (as Seneca says) the subtiler things are
they are but the nearer to nothing. So are all their definitions of things by acts the nearer to nonsense.

12 Where Truth, &c.] Some authors have mistaken truth for a real thing, when
it is nothing but a right method of putting those notions or images of things (in the understanding of man) into the
same and order that their originals hold in nature, and therefore Aristotle says Unumquodque sicut habet secundum esse,
ita se habet secundum veritatem. Met. L. ii. [As every thing has a secondary essence, therefore it has a secondary
truth]

13 Like words congeal’d, &c.] Some report in Nova Zembla, and Greenland, mens’
words are wont to be frozen in the air, and at the thaw may heard.

Here again is another alteration of three or lines, as I think, for the worse.

Some specific epithets were added to the title of some famous doctors, as Angelicus, Irrefragabilis, Subtilis,
[Angelic, Unopposable, Discriminating] &c. Vide Vossi Etymolog. Baillet Jugemens de Scavans, & Possevin’s
Apparatus

Thomas Aquinas, a Dominican friar, was born in 1224, and studied at Cologne and Paris. He new modelled the
school-divinity, and was therefore called the Angelic Doctor, and Eagle of Divines. The most illustrious persons of his
time were ambitious of his friendship, and put a high value on his merits, so that they offered him bishopricks, which
he refused with as much ardor as others seek after them. He died in the fiftieth year of his age, and was canonized by
Pope John XII. We have his works in eighteen volumes, several times printed.

Johannes Dunscotus was a very learned man, who lived about the end of the thirteenth and beginning of the fourteenth
century. The English and Scotch strive which of them shall have the honour of his birth. The English say, he was born
in Northumberland: the Scots alledge he was born at Duns, in the Mers, the neighbouring county to Northumberland, and
hence was called Dunscotus. Moreri, Buchanan, and other Scotch historians, are of this opinion, and for proof cite his
epitaph:

Scotia me genuit, Anglia suscepit,

Gallia edocuit, Germania tenet.

[Scotland bore me, England reared me,

France instructed me, Germany kept me.]

He died at Cologne, Novem. 8. 1308. In the Supplement to Dr. Cave’s Historia Literaria, he is said to be
extraordinary learned in physicks, metaphysicks, mathematicks, and astronomy; that his fame was so great when at
Oxford, that 30,000 scholars came thither to hear his lectures: that when at Paris, his arguments and authority carried
it for the immaculate conception of the Blessed Virgin; so that they appointed a festival on that account, and would
admit us scholars to degrees but such as were of this mind. He was a great opposer of Thomas Aquinas’s doctrine; and,
for being a very acute logician, was called Doctor Subtilis; [Discriminating (or, literally, Slender) Teacher] which
was the reason also, that an old punster always called him the Lathy Doctor.

16 As tough as, &c.] Sorbon was the first and most considerable college of the
university of Paris, founded in time reign of St. Lewis, by Robert Sorbon, which name is sometimes given to the whole
University of Paris, which was founded, about the year 741, by Charlemagne, at the persuasion of the learned Alcuinus,
who was one of the first professors there; since which time it has been very famous. This college has been rebuilt with
an extraordinary magnificence, at the charge of Cardinal Richlieu, and contains lodgings for thirty-six doctors, who
are called the Society of Sorbon. Those which are received among them before they have received their doctor’s degree
are only said to be of the Hospitality of Sorbon. Claud. Hemeraus de Acad. Paris. Spondan in Annal.

17 he knew, &c.] There is nothing more ridiculous than the various opinions of
authors about the seat of Paradise. Sir. Walter Raleigh has taken a great deal of pains to collect them, in the
beginning of his History of the World; where those, who are unsatisfied, may be fully informed.

18 By a High–Dutch, &c.] Goropius Becanus endeavours to prove that High–Dutch
was the language that Adam and Eve spoke in Paradise.

19 If either of &c.] Adam and Eve being made, and not conceived and formed in
the womb had no navels as some learned men have supposed, because they had no need of them.

20 Who first made, &c.] Musick is said to be invented by Pythagoras, who first
found out the proportion of notes from the sounds of hammers upon an anvil

21 Like MAHOMET’s &c.) Mahomet had a tame dove, that used to pick seeds out of
his ear that it might be thought to whisper and inspire him. His ass was so intimate with him, that the Mahometans
believed it carried him to heaven, and stays there with him to bring him back again.

He made a vow never to cut his beard until the Parliament had subdued the King; of which order of phanatick votaries
there were many in those times.

23 So learned TALIACOTIUS &c.] Taliacotius was an Italian surgeon, that found
out a way to repair lost and decayed noses. This Taliacotius was chief surgeon to the Great Duke of Tuscany, and wrote
a treatise, De Curtis Membris, [Of Cut-off Parts] which he dedicates to his great master wherein he not only declares
the models of his wonderful operations in restoring of lost members, but gives you cuts of the very instruments and
ligatures he made use of therein; from hence our Author (cum poetica licentia [with poetic licence]) has taken his
simile.

24 For as AENEAS, &c.] AEneas was the son of Anchises and Venus; a Trojan,
who, after long travels, came to Italy, and after the death of his father-inlaw, Latinus, was made king of Latium, and
reigned three years. His story is too long to insert here, and therefore I refer you to Virgil’s AEneids. Troy being
laid in ashes, he took his aged father Anchises upon his back, and rescued him from his enemies. But being too
solicitous for his son and household gods, he lost his wife Creusa; which Mr. Dryden, in his excellent translation,
thus expresseth.

Haste my dear father (tis no time to wait,)

And load my shoulders with a willing freight.

Whate’er befals, your life shall be my care;

One death, or one deliv’rance, we will share.

My hand shall lead our little son; and you,

My faithful consort, shall our steps pursue.

25 — For ARTHUR, &c.] Who this Arthur was and whether any ever reigned in
Britain, has been doubted heretofore, and is by some to this very day. However, the history of him, which makes him one
of the nine worthies of the world, is a subject, sufficient for the Poet to be pleasant upon.

26 — Toledo trusty, &c.] The capital city of New Castile, Spain, with an
archbishopric and primacy. It was very famous, amongst other things, for tempering the best metal for swords, as
Damascus was and perhaps may be still.

Julius Caesar had a horse with feet like a man’s. Utebatur equo insigni; pedibus prope humanis, modum digitorum
ungulis fissis. [He rode a horse with this distinction; it had feet like a man’s, having the hooves split like toes]
Suet. in Jul. Cap. 61.

Dido, Queen of Carthage, who bought as much land as she could compass with an ox’s hide, which she cut into small
thongs, and cheated the owner of so much ground as served her to build Carthage upon.

30 As the bold, &c.] AEneas, whom Virgil reports to use a golden bough for a
pass to hell; and taylors call that place Hell where they put all they steal.

31 As three, &c.] Read the great Geographical Dictionary, under that word.

32 In Magick, &c.] Talisman is a device to destroy any sort of vermin, by
casting their images in metal, in a precise minute, when the stars are perfectly inclined to do them all the mischief
they can. This has been experienced by some modern Virtuosi upon rats, mice, and fleas, and found (as they affirm) to
produce the effect with admirable success.

Raymund Lully interprets cabal, out of the Arabic, to signify Scientia superabundans; which his commentator,
Cornelius Agrippa, by over-magnifying, has rendered a very superfluous foppery.

33 As far as, &c.] The author of Magia Adamica endeavours to prove the
learning of the ancient Magi to be derived from that knowledge which God himself taught Adam in Paradise before the
fall.

The intelligible world is a kind of Terra Del Fuego, or Psittacorum Regio[Land of Parrots], &c. discovered only
by the philosophers; of which they talk, like parrots, what they do not understand.

35 learned &c.] No nation in the world is more addicted to this occult
philosophy than the Wild–Irish are, as appears by the whole practice of their lives; of which see Camden in his
description of Ireland.

36 Or Sir AGRIPPA, &c.] They who would know more of Sir Cornelius Agrippa,
here meant, may consult the Great Dictionary.

Anthroposophus is only a compound Greek word, which signifies a man that is wise in the knowledge of men, as is used
by some anonymous author to conceal his true name. Dr. Floud was a sort of an English Rosy-crucian, whose works are
extant, and as intelligible as those of Jacob Behmen.

The fraternity of the Rosy-crucians is very like the sect of the ancient Gnostici, who called them selves so from
the excellent learning they pretended to, although they were really the most ridiculous sots of mankind. Vere Adeptus
is one that has commenced in their phanatick extravagance.

This Vicars was a man of as great interest and authority in the late Reformation as Pryn or Withers, and as able a
poet. He translated Virgil’s AEneids into as horrible Travesty, in earnest, as the French Scaroon did in burlesque, and
was only outdone in his way by the politic author of Oceana.

40 We that are, &c.] This speech is set down as it was delivered by the
Knight, in his own words: But since it is below the gravity of heroical poetry to admit of humour, but all men are
obliged to speak wisely alike, and too much of so extravagant a folly would become tedious and impertinent, the rest of
his harangues have only his sense expressed in other words, unless in some few places, where his own words could not be
so well avoided.

41 In bloody, &c.] Cynarctomachy signifies no thing in the world but a fight
between dogs and bears; though both the learned and ignorant agree that in such words very great knowledge is
contained: And our Knight, as one, or both, of these, was of the same opinion.

42 Or Force, &c.] Averruncate: Another of the same kind, which, though it
appear ever so learned and profound, means nothing else but the weeding of corn.

The History of the White Elephant and the Monkey’s-Tooth, which the Indians adored, is written by Mons. le Blanc.
This monkey’s tooth was taken by the Portuguese from those that worshipped it; and though they offered a vast ransom
for it, yet the Christians were persuaded by their priests rather to burn it. But as soon as the fire was kindled, all
the people present were not able to endure the horrible stink that came from it, as if the fire had been made of the
same ingredients with which seamen use to compose that kind of granados which they call stinkards.

44 The Rage, &c.] Boute-feus is a French word, and therefore it were uncivil
to suppose any English person (especially of quality) ignorant of it, or so ill-bred as to need an exposition.

45 ’Tis sung, &c.] Mamaluke is the name of the militia of the Sultans of
Egypt. It signified a servant or soldier. They were commonly captives taken from amongst the Christians, and instructed
in military discipline, and did not marry. Their power was great; for besides that the Sultans were chosen out of their
body, they disposed of the most important offices of the kingdom. They were formidable about 200 years; ‘till at last
Selim, Sultan of the Turks, routed them, and killed their Sultan, near Aleppo, 1516, and so put an end to the empire of
Mamalukes, which had lasted 267 years. No question but the rhime to Mamaluke was meant Sir Samuel Luke, of whom in the
Preface.

46 Honour is like, &c.] Our English proverbs are not impertinent to this
purpose:

He that woos a Maid, must seldom come in her sight:

But he that woos a Widow, must woo her Day and Night.

He that woos a Maid, must feign, lye, and flatter:

But he that woos a Widow, must down with his Breeches, and at her.

This proverb being somewhat immodest, Mr Ray says he would not have inserted it in his collection, but that he met
with it in a little book, intitled, the Quakers’ Spiritual Court Proclaimed; written by Nathaniel Smith, Student in
Physic; wherein the author mentions it as counsel given him by Hilkiah Bedford, an eminent Quaker in London, who would
have had him to have married a rich widow, in whose house he lodged. In case he could get her, this Nathaniel Smith had
promised Hilkiah a chamber gratis. The whole narrative is worth the reading.